Libertarians for Ron Paul

“Last night Rep. Ron Paul made a wistful kind of trip to the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia for a speech to the Robert Taft Club, a paleoconservative salon launched in 2006. Planning began long before news broke of Paul’s $5.1 million summer fundraising haul. That news turned a small event into a monster lecture, around 300 people lining up and around stairs to get into a small, oak-panelled room at a chop house. Journalists from ABC News and C-Span set up cameras as print journalists milled around.”

“Paul arrived a bit after 8 p.m., agog at the crowd. “I asked how many people belonged to this club,” he said, “and they said ‘oh, about 35 people.’ I’m used to speaking for… little groups of 35 people,” he said.”

“I saw Paul speak to a smaller, younger crowd of conservatives at CPAC six months back and his speaking style’s changed since then, if only slightly. He still wanted to barrel through a 30-minute address but was ready to pause and soak it in when people cheered at statements like “We need to go back to Revolutionary times and pick up the pieces!” Paul had a campaign to brag about, and re-enacted the moment from a Michigan rally (of 2000 people on the State campus) when he started talking abut fiat money and “some people started burning Federal Reserve notes!” He reared back his head and laughed. “Sometimes people will hand me a Fed note to sign and I ask them: ‘Is this going to increase the value or is it going to drive it down?’”

Dave Weigel’s full report @ http://www.reason.com/blog/show/122950.html

“Two important events occurred in October 1957. First, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, into orbit, causing many to speculate the West was losing to the superior technology and, possibly, inevitable ideology of communism. Second, the novel “Atlas Shrugged” was published. Its author, Ayn Rand, had fled the tyranny of Soviet communism in 1926 for freedom in the West.”

“Today communism in Russia and its satellite countries is dead. “Atlas” and Miss Rand’s other works continue to sell millions of copies. A 1992 Library of Congress survey found it to be the most influential book in the country after the Bible. It helped launch the modern free market and libertarian movement.”

“Miss Rand’s ideas, which provided an effective counter to Marxist collectivism, are needed even more today to provide the philosophical basis for a much-needed culture of principled individualism.”

Edward Hudgins of The Atlas Society on the 50th Anniversary of Atlas Shrugged http://tinyurl.com/39f877 

 ”President Bush has no better friends than the spineless Democratic congressional leadership and the party’s leading presidential candidates when it comes to his failing Iraq policy.”"Those Democrats seem to have forgotten that the American people want U.S. troops out of Iraq, especially since Bush still cannot give a credible reason for attacking Iraq after nearly five years of war.”

“Last week at a debate in Hanover, N.H., the leading Democratic presidential candidates sang from the same songbook: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, and Barack Obama of Illinois and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards refused to promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013, at the end of the first term of their hypothetical presidencies. Can you believe it?”

When the question was put to Clinton, she reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: “It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting.”

Obama dodged, too: “I think it would be irresponsible” to say what he would do as president.

Edwards, on whom hopes were riding to show some independence, replied to the question: “I cannot make that commitment.”

Helen Thomas continues @ http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/334324_thomas05.html 

“The Iraq War has given the neoconservatives—who favor the assertive use of American power abroad to spread American values—something of a bad name, and several of the Republican candidates seem less than eager to hire them as advisers. But Rudy Giuliani apparently never got that memo. One of the top foreign-policy consultants to the leading GOP candidate is Norman Podhoretz, a founding father of the neocon movement.”

Newsweek reports on Mayor 9/11’s ties to the warhawk intellectuals who brought us the Iraq disaster http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21162326/site/newsweek/ 

David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute, on Ron Paul’s fundraising:

“Ron Paul’s amazing fundraising success — with no support from the Republican establishment and little attention from the mainstream media — is an indication of the wide appeal of his message of constitutionalism, reduced spending, and an end to the Iraq war. In some ways Ron Paul is the antidote for every problem that plagued Republicans in 2006: Voters were tired of Republican corruption, and Ron Paul has never succumbed to the temptations of Washington. They were fed up with overspending, and he’s the original anti-spender. They’re disillusioned by the seemingly endless war in Iraq, and Ron Paul opposed that war from the beginning. He’s appealing to fed-up traditional Republicans and to younger voters who haven’t yet been Republicans. ”

“The fact that he raised $5 million mostly in small donations and over the Internet means two things: that his donors aren’t “maxed out” and could still give more, and that he’s reaching a broad range of new contributors, not the standard big donors who have filled the coffers of the leading candidates in both parties. “

“Public approval for President Bush and Congress has sunk to the lowest levels ever recorded in The Associated Press-Ipsos poll.”

“Only 31 percent said they approve of the job Bush is doing, according to the survey released on Thursday. His lowest previous approval in the survey was 32 percent — a virtual tie with the new reading — recorded several times, most recently in June.”

“Only 69 percent of Republicans voiced approval of Bush, about where he has been in recent months but still an anemic showing for a president within his own party.”

Full story: http://tinyurl.com/2cepwc 

At the beginning of the second half-hour of Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room” on CNN, he began with the news about Ron Paul’s third-quarter fundraising totals:

Some stunning political news this hour concerning Ron Paul: The Republican presidential hopeful is low in the national and state polls, but now, when it comes to campaign cash, he’s standing very tall.Ron Paul’s campaign reports that the congressman from Texas raised five million dollars over the past three months. That’s in the same neighborhood as what rival John McCain is expected to report, and it’s five times what former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee reportedly raised. It’s also more than three million dollars more than Paul raised over the first six months of this year. Paul can partially credit his big bucks to a strong following on the Internet.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA - The Ron Paul 2008 presidential campaign raised $5,080,000 during the third quarter of 2007. That is an impressive 114 percent increase from the second quarter. Cash on hand for the Paul campaign is $5,300,000.

“Dr. Paul’s message is freedom, peace and prosperity,” said Paul campaign chairman Kent Snyder. “As these fundraising numbers show, more Americans each day are embracing Dr. Paul’s message.”

CNN and ABC News both reported on Ron Paul’s fund-raising success: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/03/pauls-fundraising-shock/ 

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/10/paul-raises-jaw.html  

MSNBC hailed the fact that Ron Paul’s latest rally in New Hampshire drew over 800, more than any other candidate has drawn in the Granite State.

They go on to point out this amazing fundraising feat:

Last week, they asked supporters to raise $500,000 on the Internet. They passed that in three days, and ended up toping $1,000,000 by the end of the week.

Wired compares this to John Edwards’ similar plea:

John Edwards’ senior campaign advisor Joe Trippi sent out a note to supporters Sunday evening asking them to top up their pledges to reach the $1 million online fund-raising goal that the campaign had set 10 days ago. The e-mail said that the Edwards campaign had, at the time the note was sent out, almost reached the goal. It had raised almost $921,000 online.